


The Sceptical Chymist

by jukeboxhound



Series: Bezoars & Broomsticks [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Logan's Pretentious Language, M/M, Magic, Pre-Relationship, Spiritworker!Virgil, Virgil's Foul Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 05:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: A cup of Roman ruining Virgil'slife, a pinch of Logan's philosophical meandering, a dash of magic, and a sneaky crush.





	The Sceptical Chymist

**Author's Note:**

> _The Sceptical Chymist_ (Robert Boyle) is an influential alchemical text that introduced a more mechanistic worldview to Western alchemical tradition in the 17th c.
> 
> I saw [this artwork](https://imtoobiforyou.tumblr.com/post/174635445255/a-meeting-of-two-worlds-scientistlogan-x) with witch!Virgil, went, “Hmm, as a spiritworker myself, how would _I_ want to write a magic-using Virgil?” and this was born. Otherwise it's entirely unrelated to imtoobiforyou’s piece beyond that initial inspiration and all issues are my own fault. :) Assuming I can keep myself writing, this verse will eventually become romantic LAMP and is basically the shenanigans/slices of life of spiritworker!Virgil (who is not a witch), alchemist!Logan, Hellenic polytheist!Roman, and empath!Patton. No judgment is being passed nor preaching intended in any way. The characters do not necessarily reflect my own beliefs and opinions; there is no deeper motivation than my simply wanting to have (respectful) fun with these tropes.
> 
> That said, if anyone has questions or concerns about the content here, I’m happy to respond in the comments or on my [TS sideblog](http://jukeboxmusicality.tumblr.com/).

…

On particularly boring days, Logan will be working at his desk while Virgil sprawls bonelessly over Logan’s bed and reads aloud the most improbable headlines or needlessly complicated conspiracy theories he can find on his phone until Logan breaks. This generally manifests as either an impassioned soliloquy on the utter ridiculousness that is _Homo sapiens_ or the nearest object (usually a book, occasionally a protractor) hurled at Virgil’s head. If the former, then Virgil will surreptitiously take notes of the better insults on his phone; if the latter, Virgil will lazily bat the flying object aside with a bit of magic and a flat expression, which inevitably escalates things to a point that never ends well for anyone but is goddamn _hilarious_.

“Of course, the Earth itself might not be hollow and populated by advanced civilizations, but rather that _we_ are the ones living inside the hollow sphere with our own subterranean sun.”

Logan lets out a harsh breath through his nose that wouldn’t be out of place from a disgruntled minotaur.

“I suppose that would explain all that ‘underworld’ stuff with so many different mythologies,” Virgil goes on, not at all ashamed of the sheer bullshit coming out of his mouth. “Or, conversely, all that stuff about heavenly vaults and angels going up and down ladders, and didn’t the Netjeru say ‘fuck living on earth, we’re going to the sky’?”

Despite himself, Logan asks, “Netjeru?”

“The ancient Egyptian gods. I think I remember something about how the gods walked backward off the earth all like, ‘peace out’ – “

All the hair on Virgil’s body suddenly stands on end like he’s been rubbed with a balloon and the protective spirits he always has stationed around their tiny rental house start chattering wildly. Before he can get up from the bed to figure out what the hell is going on, every electric light in Logan’s bedroom abruptly flares to a blinding degree and then dies, plunging the room into darkness. Virgil flings out a hand and spits a word that has purple flame rising harmlessly from his palm so he can see Logan (startled but unhurt, sitting frozen in his desk chair), the door (still closed and whole), and every corner of the room (no monsters trying to hide). In his ear, barely audible over the thudding of his heart, a whisper tells him that there’s no attacking entity or curse.

“Sorry!” Roman’s voice echoes through the house. “I’ll get that fixed before you even notice!”

“No worries, kiddo, it happens,” Patton laughs from another room.

Virgil, however, stomps to the door, yanks it open, and shouts back, “You moron, how many times do I have to remind you to put up some kind of wards?” His heart is still racing. It’s after sundown, so the only visible light is Virgil’s flames.

“I’m not a beginner, Virgil!”

“Yeah, even a beginner would know to at least cleanse their space of miasma before doing devotional work with the Theoi!”

“Oh, go back to your weird potions and symbols!”

“They’re _sigils!”_

“They’re _scribbles!”_

Virgil’s ready to march down to Roman’s room and throw down – he’s got a few spirits already whisper-begging for the chance to show Roman what the dead are _really_ capable of – but instead he’s being tugged back by Logan’s hand on his shoulder. Logan carefully leans past Virgil and the little flames in Virgil’s hand, yells, “Fix it _now_ , Roman!” and slams the door before stalking back to his desk. The chair squeaks in protest at how hard Logan drops into it.

“Logan?” Virgil ventures.

In response, Logan lets his forehead thunk onto the desk and waves a hand at his laptop.

“Oh,” Virgil says uselessly. The screen of the laptop has a thick crack now running through its glass, somehow. “Is it, um, fixable?”

Logan makes a noise somewhere between rage and despair. One of Virgil’s spirits whisper that none of them know how to fix electronics and, without Logan being receptive to his own spirits, _they_ can’t do anything either. At least the house’s guardians have calmed down to an irritable murmur, which means there’s no lingering spiritual damage.

“ _Magic_ is the _bane_ of my _existence_ ,” Logan mutters into the desk. Virgil flinches and reminds himself that Logan is just understandably upset. _(Or he’s just being honest_ , says the voice that is purely Virgil’s own anxiety, no extra spirits attached.) He flicks his fingers so that the purple flames in his hand curl up into a lighted ball that settles itself harmlessly near the ceiling like a bubble, casting a soft glow over the room.

“Technically, that wasn’t magic but a god. Or a spirit in a god’s entourage,” Virgil says lightly. “Roman’s had this thing going with Apollo for a while and I guess Apollo had some thoughts to share? I’m honestly not sure if that was a, uh, good sign or not.”

“Apollo. Of course. Why didn’t I guess that?” Logan asks the desk in despair.

“Probably because you’ve only known about this shit for like a few months,” Virgil quips, because he can’t help it sometimes.

Logan lifts his head and snaps, “Yes, thank you for reminding me that the study of this world which I have made my life’s work has been rendered _completely meaningless_ by the irrational but undeniable existence of magic and ghosts and, and _gods.”_

Virgil bites his lip, not saying anything, and when Logan finally looks at Virgil properly, he sighs and reaches up to rub the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “I apologize, Virgil, that was uncalled for. I do not mean to denigrate your own paradigm.”

“It’s okay. I mean, you’re not wrong.”

“Yes, I am, both because it’s unfair to you and because it is not actually irrational at all. However, no one likes to admit when they are wrong,” he admits wryly, “especially when they believe that their own paradigm is based purely on empirical evidence and logic.”

Virgil sits on the edge of the bed, phone forgotten somewhere in the blankets. “What?”

“What is a god?” Logan asks. It’s mildly terrifying be the sole subject of Logan’s attention and yet Virgil always feels, like, sad or disappointed or whatever when Logan moves on to something else.

“Uh…”

“Virgil, what is a god?” Logan’s voice has taken on that measured, patient tone that only comes out when he’s in teacher mode. Virgil has no idea where this is going.

“I don’t know. I mean, I have ideas, but I…don’t actually know.”

“Exactly. And whatever answer you gave me, I have no doubt that there would be many more people who would disagree and give their own definitions, all of which may be just as likely as yours. Without a clear definition of a subject and essentially no way of narrowing down the possible parameters, I cannot logically conclude that the subject does not exist by necessity. Ergo, claiming that it is impossible for certain entities to exist - or that they _do_ exist, for that matter - without actually being able to define exactly what those entities are is itself the illogical endeavor. And that is not taking into consideration the observable facts that I have witnessed myself in these last three months,” Logan finishes with a sigh. “There is so much philosophical complexity that these last few months have been...intellectually exhausting."

“What about the inherent unreliability of human subjectivity?”

“A regrettable state of things, but unavoidable. I have settled on agnosticism as my most logical conclusion, for now.”

Virgil can’t help chewing the inside of his cheek a little, torn between amusement and feeling weirdly vulnerable. “I have to admit that I have no idea what to say to that.”

“You yourself are not a ‘devotee’ of a specific deity or group of deities, correct?” Logan asks.

“The dead and land spirits just make more sense to me, I guess,” Virgil hedges.

Logan glances at his laptop with a frown, looks back at Virgil more thoughtfully, makes a sound like he’s come to some kind of decision, and then gets up to loom over Virgil. The dim light makes him look taller and leaner than usual, maybe a touch less human. “Sit back, please.”

After a few seconds of confused staring, Virgil shifts back onto the bed and crosses his legs, watching as Logan sits in front of him in a mirrored position. Virgil reflexively pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his fingers.

“Show me.”

“Show you what?”

Logan huffs softly with some embarrassment. “I mean, show me your magic, please.”

“I already have, remember? Or do you not remember all those tests you ran on me when I turned that spider into a kitten?” That spider was huge and had scared Patton in the kitchen. What _else_ was Virgil supposed to do?

“Aah, yes, the _eight-legged_ kitten?”

Virgil scowls. “Look, magic’s an art, not a science.”

Logan…smiles. Huh. “Straight from the mouth of the evil witch who apparently has struck fear into many a local coven.”

Virgil feels his cheeks go hot and wishes the floor would swallow him whole. He hears some of his spirits titter. “Who the fuck told you that?”

“Roman seems rather proud to be rooming with someone that others find intimidating. For how often you and Roman fight, you’re both rather terrible at actually being enemies.”

“How dare you,” Virgil grumbles, unable to get more offended when Logan’s looking at him with such an open expression in the faint glow of Virgil’s flame ball above their heads.

Logan's face does a twisty thing of discomfort. “I do apologize for snapping at you. You haven’t done anything wrong except provide ad revenue to Internet fringe groups that would have society return to an age of scientific stupidity.”

“Eh, gotta keep you on your toes.”

 "You've done admirably so far," Logan says with dry humor. “Virgil, will you please show me your magic?”

“Well, I mean – um, what do you – what do you want to see?” Judging from the quiet laughter, his spirits are _never going to let him live this down_. 

“Perhaps we may start with the chromatic combustive materialization you have already demonstrated – the purple flames.”

In the dim, violet-tinged light, Logan’s brown eyes look like the polished rounds of onyx that Virgil sometimes uses for oracular work. Virgil slowly lifts his hand and says the words that allow purple flames to flicker over his fingers, watching how they cause light and shadow to shift over the curves and angles of Logan’s face.

Logan lets out a soft, “Oh,” of wonder that he probably isn’t even aware of and reaches out towards the flames before pausing. “May I also touch them?”

“Yeah, they’re safe.” Dear lord, it sounds like someone took sandpaper to his voice.

The flames weave happily around Logan’s curious fingers. Logan says, “It feels so warm,” and while Virgil can’t feel the flames themselves, only the slight pull on his energy that keeps them going, he can definitely feel the effect that the fascination on Logan’s face is having on his pulse.

_…Oh. Oh, shit. I’m so fucked._

(One of the guardians, the neighbor's cat that died of old age six months ago but which didn't let that get in the way of continuing to hunt small creatures, pokes its head through the closed bedroom door when it senses Virgil’s burst of adrenaline. When it realizes there’s no danger, however, it gives off a distinct feeling that it would definitely be rolling its eyes if it could before disappearing again.)

“How does the fire work? What fuels it? Why does it burn with so little heat?”

It takes a few seconds for Virgil’s brain to stop focusing on Logan’s face and start processing the words coming out of it. “I guess, everyone’s got, like, energy, right? Not just basic homeostatic stuff but a more spiritual version of that, too, and I mean, people have got different words for it and different ways of describing it, but at least for me, I just…concentrate really hard?”

Logan gives him a flat look.

“Hey, man, I don’t know what to tell you. Everyone does it differently and not all those different ways are going to work for everyone.”

“I am asking how it works for you,” Logan clarifies, and because Virgil is sad and pathetic and apparently nursing a crush the size of goddamn Jupiter (both the god _and_ the planet because _that’s exactly how pathetic he is_ and he _hadn’t even realized it until now_ , who gave his heart permission to pull this shit without telling him) he feels himself start blushing again.

“You still meditate every day, right?”

“Yes. I find it beneficial to my emotional well-being.”

Virgil already knows that and is pretty sure that makes him a stalker, even if it’s (mostly) because they share a small house with two other adult men and it’s difficult to avoid learning certain things about each other. Like magic powers. “Okay, so, when you’re doing meditation stuff, do you ever notice things like…the flow of your blood? The warmth in your body?”

“I hadn’t thought of it as such.” Logan pauses, obviously reflecting back through some memories, before he adds more decisively, “Yes, actually.”

“Now, take that feeling and imagine being able to have conscious control of it.”

“But that’s impossible. The cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, renin–angiotensin, and – ah.” Logan sighs when Virgil can’t stop himself from grinning. “Magic. Right.”

That only warrants a tiny, internal cringe that Virgil can ignore, thankfully. Baby steps. “Magic and spirits and even the friggin’ gods all have their own rules, too. Instead of thinking about all that as a system entirely separate from science, think of them as, like, parts of the same system that you don’t yet have all the information for to understand how they work together.”

Shit, that’s a terrible metaphor. Logan’s face goes a bit blank, which is a sure sign that someone’s run right against the grain of his considerable knowledge. Virgil is about try backtracking when Logan unexpectedly perks up a bit and says, “Not unlike the divide between Newtonian and quantum physics. They appear contradictory but exist in the same universe – so far as we can tell, at least – so there must be _some_ kind of underlying mechanism that reconciles the two which simply has yet to be discovered.”

“I guess?” Virgil agrees tentatively.

“I admit, I hadn’t thought to frame this conundrum in this way. When there is enough evidence to demonstrate the validity of two seemingly contradictory systems coexisting, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the knowledge which would allow us to reconcile their coexistence simply hasn’t been discovered yet.” He tilts his head in thought, which is probably the cutest fucking thing Virgil has seen since that kitten kept tripping over its own eight paws. “ _Has_ such knowledge been discovered yet?”

“Depends on who you ask? I think the idea of separating science and, um, spirit stuff so thoroughly is a pretty recent thing coming out of a pretty specific time and place. There are a lot of other cultures and traditions that don’t have this problem at all.”

“Indeed. You make a valid point. I may have to make a latitudinal study across various traditions. Is there a particular place you would recommend I start?”

“You’re asking _me?”_ Virgil is surprised enough that he loses his mental grip on the fire in his palm and it flickers out, leaving just the colored glow of the magic above their heads. If it didn’t sound so goddamn ridiculous Virgil would swear that Logan looked _disappointed_ for like half a second.

“Of course I am,” Logan says very reasonably. “We’re speaking of things that I would have actively discounted only months ago. This is _your_ specialty. It would be ridiculous not to seek your counsel.”

Virgil meets Logan’s dark eyes, takes a moment to swallow down the reflexive _anything for you, darling_ , because apparently it was Virgil and not Roman who was a Disney prince in a past life, then takes another moment of silence for the death of his dignity.

Without looking away, Virgil lets his own gaze go a bit lazy and watches the tiny spots of light reflecting off of Logan’s eyes start to spark and glitter. Other points of light soften the pools of darkness until they’re a sea of stars spinning in overlapping orbits, breaking away from galaxies as quickly as they form, dancing to invisible strings that vibrate with a music that Virgil can’t hear but which every atom in his body – all once formed in the hearts of stars – instinctively recognizes.

“ – irgil? _Virgil!”_

Virgil gasps, “What? What?” and jerks back, belatedly realizing that Logan’s hands on his shoulders don’t let him get far.

“Your breathing became rapid and shallow and you didn’t respond when I tried to get your attention.” A little bit of shakiness breaks through the measured calm of Logan’s voice, and it makes Virgil feel guilty because, well, not even Virgil always knows where the magic stuff ends and his mental illness stuff begins, so how can someone as new to all this as Logan be expected to know?

“Sorry,” Virgil breathes, “that…that happens sometimes.”  Virgil’s spirits are chattering to one another but don’t seem overly concerned, which helps him find his breath again. “I think you should start with the stars.”

“The stars,” Logan says.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Neither do I. Give me a second.”

Virgil closes his eyes and focuses on the spirits’ voices. The spirit that always stands closest to him, the one that acts as the buffer and spokesperson between Virgil and the myriad spirits that wander through his world, is pushing information into Virgil’s brain: a manuscript, a set of scales, an instant of almost overwhelming depersonalization that makes Virgil grab onto Logan’s knees with tingling hands to keep his physical body from falling forward. _Fuck_. If he’d known he was going to be doing this shit, he’d have brought something for cleansing so it wouldn’t feel like his spirits had to push the information uphill into his head, but apparently Roman’s _horrible filthy habits_ are contagious.

“Ow,” Virgil murmurs. “We’re looking for something…Greek? Or Egyptian? Shut up, assholes, those are two totally different things, do we need to have the ‘living human brains are linear’ talk again,” he mutters at his spirits.

“Greece occupied Egypt for just over three hundred years and borrowed quite extensively from the culture,” Logan suggests with a kind of gentle carefulness that makes Virgil want to fling himself from the roof, except Logan’s hands are still on Virgil’s shoulders and they’re having catastrophic effects on his everything.

“Anything they borrowed in particular that stands out to you?” Virgil somehow manages to say in a halfway normal voice.

Logan frowns in thought. “The sciences are well-attested and come to mind first. Science and religion has walked hand-in-hand for most of human history, and that seems extremely relevant to what we’re discussing. Perhaps I’ll start there. Thank you.”

And Logan smiles, _again_ , and Virgil thinks, _So. Fucked._

Then the lights come back on with a surge, flaring brightly, and Virgil screams and rolls off the bed like a fucking goober, and the moment is broken.

“Hey, boys, the light are back!” Captain Fucking Obvious yodels through the house.

_“Roman you fucker when I find you – “_

 

**Author's Note:**

> "[Miasma](http://pomegranateandivy.tumblr.com/post/126018348787/hellenic-polytheism-101-miasma-cleansing)" and "[Theoi](http://baringtheaegis.blogspot.com/2016/05/why-we-call-gods-theoi.html)."


End file.
